How would you make electrical management more interesting?

[CaptRobau]

One of the parts of the game that I find most lacking is electrical management. In real-life getting enough power to do everything you want, is quite a challenge. None of this challenge can be found in KSP however. You can keep a massive space station powered throughout its entire orbit with nothing but a small battery and a small solar panel. You don't have to launch a large truss with massive solar panels like they did with ISS. There are barely any parts that require power to run and even fewer that require a constant power source.

I'd love it if this game would have us think about how many solar panels or batteries we'd have to take with us on our spacecraft, probes and space stations. But what how could this be accomplished? I'd like to discuss this here. Maybe it can inspire Squad or modmakers. So if you have any ideas, feel free to reply.

I have a few ideas of my own. If they're good or not, is open for discussion.

Limiting Solar Power

In real-life, available solar power rapidly diminishes as we get farther from the Sun. Past Mars, solar panels become less cost-effective than RTGs. In KSP, solar panels always produce almost produce about the power they do in Kerbin orbit, wherever they are in the Kerbol system. They only become useless far beyond the orbit of Eeloo. In a previous suggestion thread I went into further detail on this. If KSP followed a more realistic power progression, then different destinations would require different power strategies. A space station in Kerbin orbit would require less (or smaller) solar panels than one in Duna or Dres orbit. A probe to Duna could run on two solar panels, but one to Jool or Eeloo might be better served with an RTG. This change is useless without an economy (so things can become cost-effective or not) or more things the consume electrical power, but with those things introduced this would be a thing to keep in mind as it would introduce more choices to the game.

Science Costs Electricity

At the moment there are very few energy consuming parts. There's the Science Lab and the antenna parts that gulp up ElectricalCharge, but the other science parts are noticeably lacking. It doesn't require any power to collect science from a Mystery Goo container or a Thermometer, even though these parts are recording data. Introducing power consumption to these parts might add some interesting choices in the early career mode, when battery power is limited.

Constant Power Consumption

The holy grail in making electrical management more interesting is parts that require a constant power consumption. At the moment this is only Probes and Sensors/Lights when they're turned on. This is such a small number of parts and they have such a low amount of power consumption, that it makes almost no difference. What parts could we introduce or change so that they meaningfully use electrical power and stop functioning when there isn't enough power? I have some ideas:

Manned Pods

All the lights, equipment, etc. in a command pod require electricity to function. Yet they don't. A command pod that doesn't receive power wouldn't be able to control the craft it is part of, similar to a probe body. This is probably the simplest change to implement, as it would work the same way as with probes.

Life Support

A simple life support system I think is still in the vein of KSP. To produce 'life support' you need electricity. If you run out, the amount of life support starts to decrease. If you don't start producing extra power or shut some things down, your Kerbals will die once the life support runs out.

Antennas

In real-life spacecraft are almost always relaying some kind of information back to Earth (except hibernating deep space probes). Want to be able to send back science data to Kerbin? Add an antenna, and thus a power drain to your spacecraft or station. Probes could perhaps be made so that they require an antenna to be controllable.

Anyway, these were my ideas. If you have some ideas on how to make electric management part of KSP more interesting, please join the discussion.

[coolitic]

I like the idea of better power management, but not in the way you suggested it.

[regex]

Limiting Solar Power

This is in the game, but the power curve drop off is pretty gentle. It should be steeper.

Science Costs Electricity

Well, yeah, maybe, but that's really only interesting in the early game where it might end up being crippling. As it stands, the lack of batteries early on almost force the player to earn the lower tree nodes first.

Manned Pods

Agree 100%.

Life Support

That's a totally different subject that I think should be rolled up into the Manned Pods section.

Antennas

Nice, but how many are always on? What if someone gets artsy with the antenna spam? If we had some sort of remote functionality I'd be able to get behind this.

I can't really add much else, I think you covered the most obvious bases.

[Tery215]

I agree with limiting solar power, but given metal sticks that bend one way or the other due to heat you don't need electricity. The rest I also disagree on.

[Rusty6899]

I think it would be a good idea to allow players to benefit from implementing electricity needs into their design stage. As you have said, at the moment it seems to be a case of sticking a couple of solar panels and a battery and you have enough power for pretty much anything.

I definitely think that the solar panels have to lose their efficiency earlier than they currently do. At the same time, RTGs should be more expensive. Manned pods should definitely require electricity. As for life support, I'll withhold judgement until I see how life support is handled. I agree with the antenna idea, as the tracking centre would surely need 2-way transmission to keep track of ships.

The main problem with it at the moment is that the only function electric charge has at the moment is to annoy you when you don't deploy solar panels and end up running out. It really should be developed into an integral part of designing a cost effective mission.

[Nuke]

im of the opinion that almost everything should consume power. control surfaces should consume power, anything that moves should use power while its moving. if a kerbal is in it, consumes power. i dont think anything needs to be done beyond that.

[Castille7]

I would like to see some sort of Power Station that would be needed for continuous power and having power lines to connect to light sources. This would mean solar panels & batteries will wear down and have to be swapped out or you could invest and transport a Power Station or Generator of some sort. Some examples: A Mun base that needs lighting on the dark side, A Large Space Station needing lots of lighting.

[Kruleworld]

Manned Pods

All the lights, equipment, etc. in a command pod require electricity to function. Yet they don't. A command pod that doesn't receive power wouldn't be able to control the craft it is part of, similar to a probe body.

I thought they do??? when power runs out, the entire craft is uncontrollable. (this may have changed recently, because i no longer send up ships without a stack of batteries and power sources). I'm pretty sure i got caught out when starting out with KSP.

[CaptRobau]

No without power you simply you can't use the torque on the ship anymore as that draws power when you use it to orient your ship. I think you can still do other commands like staging. What I'm suggesting is a constant, small power drain that forces players to use a more realistic number of solar panels, RTGs, etc. It's supposed to simulate the cost of running all the equipment, dials, etc. inside the spacecraft.

[Javster]

I don't mind the capsule change, but I'd also like an integrated fuel cell.

[architeuthis]

OP: Great ideas! I would love to see more depth to this game mechanic!

You can keep a massive space station powered throughout its entire orbit with nothing but a small battery and a small solar panel.

I was just thinking about this. It's possible that KSP solar panels generate colossally more power than any comparable human technology. The PB-ion info notes that it is not powered by witchcraft, however assuming it is %100 percent efficient it produces 20.6 MW of thrust power (P=T*Ve)! It draws 14.6 E/s which means the conversion factor is 1.4 [MW] per [E/s]. This means that a single humble OX-Stat panel produces 1.1 MW of power at Kerbin's orbital distance. This is over one hundred time the combined power of the ISS solar arrays! Any tiny power draws are a drop in the bucket compared to this. If Kerbol's solar insolation works anything like our own sun's, this is probably impossible (or PB-ions are perpetual motion machines of the first kind)... anyway I digress

Nice, but how many are always on? What if someone gets artsy with the antenna spam?

I guessing that the average power drawn by the communications isn't to far below the peak load. I read somewhere that the power breakdown for the ISS is something roughly like:

ECLSS ...40%

IS ...20%

G&C ...5%

Experiments, lighting, misc ...35%

Where ECLSS is the Environmental Control and Life Support System, IS is the Information System (communications, tracking, computers and data management etc.), and G&C is Guidance and Control (navigation, IMUs, control moment gyros etc.).